NASA’s Cassini Captures Stunning Image of Saturn with Earth in the Background

NASA has released an amazing image captured by the Cassini spacecraft in July of Saturn and the Earth.  

This is the first natural color image of Saturn from space released by NASA. This is also the first official portrait in which Cassini captured the ringed planet Saturn along with its seven moons, its inner rings and in the background, our home planet-Earth, Venus and Mars are also visible.

The new panoramic mosaic of the whole Saturn system captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft is a stunner. Prior to this, NASA has released images captured by Cassini, but this is the first mosaic that includes 141 wide-angle images of Saturn captured in natural color that actually mimics how the human naked eye might view Saturn.

"With a long, intricate dance around the Saturn system, Cassini aims to study the Saturn system from as many angles as possible," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Beyond showing us the beauty of the Ringed Planet, data like these also improve our understanding of the history of the faint rings around Saturn and the way disks around planets form -- clues to how our own solar system formed around the sun."

A detailed look into the Saturn system mosaic shows Earth as a bright blue speck to the lower right of Saturn, Venus is seen as a bright dot to the upper left of the planet and Mars is the faint red dot above and left of Venus. Apart from this, the seven Saturnian moons are also visible including Enceladus on the left side of the image. A deeper look into the image shows moon and a plume springing from the south pile, emanating fine powdered-sized icy particles that make up the E-ring.

"This mosaic provides a remarkable amount of high-quality data on Saturn's diffused rings, revealing all sorts of intriguing structures we are currently trying to understand," said Matt Hedman, a Cassini participating scientist at the University of Idaho in Moscow. "The E ring in particular shows patterns that likely reflect disturbances from such diverse sources as sunlight and Enceladus' gravity."

The image that spans nearly 404,880 miles across (651,591 kilometers) captures Saturn and its inner ring system including the E ring, Saturn's second outermost ring.

"In this one magnificent view, Cassini has delivered to us a universe of marvels," Carolyn Porco, Cassini's imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo, said in a statement. "And it did so on a day people all over the world, in unison, smiled in celebration at the sheer joy of being alive on a pale blue dot."

The mosaic is a part of the 'Wave at Saturn' campaign, where NASA encouraged earthlings to participate in cosmic fun by looking and waving in the direction of Saturn as NASA's two spacecrafts Cassini and MESSENGER took photos of Earth as they moved into place on July 19-20.

Launched in 1997, Cassini has been observing the Saturn system for more than nine years and will continue its mission till 2017.